Sunday, January 8, 2017

Four dead and many injured in a bus accident in Saône-et-Loire – 20minutes.fr

ICEA bus carrying Portuguese in Switzerland is out of the road, resulting in the death of four people and twenty wounded.

A bus accident, which occurred on January 8, 2017 in the vicinity of the viaduct, Charolles (Saône-et-Loire), causing several deaths. – PHILIPPE DESMAZES / AFP

20 Minutes with AFP

Published on 08.01.2017 09:56

updated the 08.01.2017 at 10:03 am

A bus with forty seats fell below the National 79 around 4: 30 this Sunday morning. Four Portuguese nationals were killed and twenty others injured in this accident, according to a new provisional assessment of the prefecture.

A previous balance reported five dead, but one person was able to be revived by the emergency services, said the same source. Three of the injured were in absolute emergency. Came-and-a others are relative urgency.

icy Road

according To Creusot-Infos, the bus is made in Switzerland. The accident happened shortly before the viaduct, Charolles, a stretch of the RCEA (Route Centre Europe and the Atlantic that crosses France East to West), considered to be very dangerous.

The output of route, probably due to the ice storm, freezing rain which fell on the region. The Saône-et-Loire is one of the seven departments placed in vigilance orange by Météo-France for the ice and snow. The director of cabinet of the prefect of Saône-et-Loire, being interrogated by the Creusot-Infos, request to motorists not to take to the road as the pavements are icy.

>> also read : Snow and ice: Thirty-seven departments placed in orange alert in the north of France

Seventy-five fire and rescue units were mobilised to the scene. An advanced medical post was installed in a PMU bar of Charolles. Two of the most seriously injured people were taken to the hospital of Mâcon and a at the hospital of Paray-le-Monial. The other wounded were to be distributed in both these institutions, and, without doubt, to the hospital of Roanne (Loire), said the prefecture.

A section dangerous

busy, the RN 79 crosses the Allier, and Saône-et-Loire, Moulins and Macon multiple edges at a time in a way that makes passing very dangerous. It is nicknamed “the road of death” due to a large number of accidents. In August 2015, two accidents had already been four serious injuries and a total height of Charolles, and many other collision or leave the road resulted in death.

This axis is the object of security measures for several years. In April, in addition to the work in two times two lanes provided for in the department, the prefect of the Saône-et-Loire announced for 5.6 million euros of refurbishment work and securing additional.

march 29, 2016, twelve Portuguese nationals from Switzerland had already died in the collision of a van transformed into a minibus and a truck on this same road, but in the Allier.